Anyone had counselling after all this SEN mess?

[appropriatelytrained]

I am obsessing - I know I am. This whole business has ruined my life but the anger is really eating me up and I feel if I don't do something, it will affect my mental health.

I have never been so roundly bullied and lied to by any group of people in my life but the fact that this is about my vulnerable son drives me crazy with fury.

I know I need to do something constructive about it like Star's group but I also need to let it all out safely to someone so I can keep rational and reasonable.

Anyone else had experience of therapy or the like over this? Did it help? I had PTSD once after a car accident years ago and I am getting those familiar signs of rage and fight/flight building up again.

[willowthecat]

No - but I know how you feel - it can be a bit like being a character in a sci fi movie at times when everyone/the aliens is/are tweaking reality against you and you start to doubt your own sanity.

[rebl]

No but I'm actually seriously considering going to the dr and asking for some. The pressure on me now is so immense I'm actually cracking up. I can't stop crying tonight and tonight I haven't been able to care for my ds or my family. DH has had to pick up the pieces and get us all fed and the kids to bed.

[Starchart]

If you seek help do it privately and be careful. A record questioning your sanity, mental health or safety of your children by implying that professional are out to get you will not help you.

Sorry.

[rebl]

Thats my worry Star, hence why I've not seeked help. Its very wrong that we're being forced into this position.

[KatyMac]

Yes - I have had months of therapy, a combination of listening & CBT

The counsellor is convinced I was bullied and badly treated.....which I am sure she is not supposed to say

[Starchart]

AT, I know you can't see it right now but there will be acrest period after the tribunal. It will be an anxious time whilst waiting for the decision of course but you'll also in that time have no prep to do for any meetings, no letters to write, no evidence to collect and the responsibility for ds and his provision is temporarily out of your hands.

This is also true for about 6 months after the decision whether you win or lose. It's a calm.

[Starchart]

I went to the GP for exhaustion and was asked some questions about my stress levels. When I responded the GP sent me for blood tests and told me that disagreeing with professionals was indicative of a personality disorder and so if my bloods came back clear she would refer me to the mental health team for a diagnosis.

I called the surgery for the blood results but as they were clear I have never been back to the GP.

I'm not advising not to seek help but to think about what you can do yourself without invOlving yet further agencies with whom you may have to fight too.

[Al1son]

I'm on the waiting list for counselling after breaking down in front of my GP. She's given me beta-blockers to help with the physical anxiety symptoms too. Fighting for provision for two children with AS has had a profound effect on my well-being.

It is a crappy system which benefits from the fact that many parents lose the will to fight.

[Claw3]

I go to the gym and take it out on the treadmill and rowing machine and off load on here.

[Claw3]

Sorry to say i trust no fucker, ive seen how they lie. Ive seen how all it takes is one word from one person or another to start the over anxious mother ball rolling and how long and how much hard work, it takes to get rid of this image and to be taken seriously.

I wouldnt touch a professional for my mental health with a barge pole, even if they asked, i nod and tell them im coping very well thank you, im Mary fucking Poppins, come Super poxy Nanny, all round into one, even i feel like shit.

[appropriatelytrained]

Just been to the gym Claw. I used to go 4 times a week but fitting it around work and the kids, with them being out of school, has been a nightmare.

I need to start to get my life back and ignore the losers who are making me so angry.

I'm not going to post on here about Tribunal but the date has been and gone.

We have been driven from school but there is so much more to the bullying and I am worried a 'record' will follow us wherever we go. I will try and get the lawyer to address this but we now will be moving and need to find a new house and a school. But can I ever trust a school again?

But my problem has been the opposite rebl - I haven't cried for ages. I wish I could. I am just an anger mission, filing well-crafted missives with people who wind me up with vague and lying responses.

I have to learn I can't change that but someone has got to hold these people to account.

[smugtandemfeeder]

I have seeked help privately and am having CBT with a private psych.

It has been used against me by social services so far and may possibly be in the future by the doctors assessing DS. But I told SS about it and perhaps I shouldnt have.

DH was also struggling with the stress of all this and started drinking more. He went for help and they recommended alvohol therapy (he wasnt drinking that much but was using alcohol as he didnt know how to cope with stress) this as you would expect has been used against us too.

But without the help our lives are even more unmanageable. CBT is very very helpful for me now. Its so helpful to have someone who listens to me. Who doesnt criticise or judge. Its helpful to find new ways of coping with stress when the pressure of life becomes too much.

[Claw3]

Appropriate, so sorry you are having a hard time, it sucks. Let us know the Tribunal decision when you get it.

The over anxious mother does follow you and it did to ds's school. You can apply to have comments removed from school file, if you feel it will be detrimental to the help your ds and you will receive. But they will form their own opinion of you regardless. All the while you dont complain, you will be a great parent, the minute you start questioning, you become a pain, however nicely you do it.

Can you ever trust another school, in my opinon no school is to be trusted, you can work with them and do your best to keep the relationship good, but trust them, no. Wherever there is money involved there is corruption, in my honest opinion.

But im just a cynical old bag

I do however think it is very important to try and have a 'life' as well as fight.

[Agnesdipesto]

I'd love to but can't find the time.
It is hard when you are in the eye of the tribunal storm, but Star is right there is some relief that its over for a while
Take care

[cory]

I had counselling from work (they offer 6 free sessions as part of their employment packet) and it really helped. It made a huge difference to have a space where I could talk about me and how the whole wretched mess was affecting me. I did ask to change counsellors though as I didn't like the first one they offered; they were fine with that. And I don't suppose there will be a record of it anywhere where anyone can get at it.

My take is that professionals are human beings, like husbands or lovers or parents: even if you have been let down in the past, you don't know about all of them. Some are to be trusted, others are not. Would trust my current GP with anything, and dd's current paed, some of the ones dcs have seen in the past certainly not, dd's present school I would trust a long way, previous school not as far as I could throw them.

[Starchart]

My GP failed to recognise that I don't disagree with ALL professionals. Just the incompetent ones.

[nadia77]

i think 99% of mums surely must have considered counseling! including me but fear that social service may use this against me has stopped me from approaching my gp for refferal. But instead i asked my patner to take some time off work to help out at home so i can have bit more social life and talk to my friends about it. i have considered private counsler.

[Claw3]

Star, did you disagree with your GP about disagreeing with professionals

[coff33pot]

Yes I have considered it but have stayed well away. It was put that because I had PND with my other dcs and the fact that my DS didnt open his eyes till his official due date it must have been difficult to actually get closely attached to my DS......................my answer was? nooooooo I didnt get attached to him I just left him from birth on the settee after all he couldnt see me and oh yesssss I forgot that previous PND could affect a child that hadnt been born during that time 16 yrs ago......................IDIOTS

[appropriatelytrained]

Blimey, best to tread carefully.

I think things will improve but not because of getting Tribunal over with, but because the whole process has made us realise how terrible school is and how stupid we have been for staying put and trying to make it work when the head never wanted him. You can't force schools to do things - you just can't.

I think this the problem once you're in the school system - the wheels in motion against you too often include your child's setting which is generally controlled by the LA too. It takes alot for a head or teacher to stand out against that pressure and support the parents. It's never going to happen unless the school gets something out of it - unless the school needs help to manage the child - and in that situation parents wouldn't be challenging the LA, the school would have made sure it was sorted.

I saw a recent document on the net from the SEN team - a SEN circular part of which thanked heads in the county for supporting the LA at Tribunals.

Getting a Tribunal over with doesn't change the fact that you're stuck, branded vexatious, in a small rural county where the LA have now decided that schools will be told that they are no longer to accept any attempts you make to bump up NHS provision with independent S&LT because it's not in the best interests of your child. Or rather, because when you did it, it demonstrated the paucity of care your child was receiving and the lack of training.

[appropriatelytrained]

Our Tribunal is over with which is why I need to find a constructive way of getting rid of the anger as well as a place to live and a new school.

[madwomanintheattic]

yep, but slightly different circs. in our case it wasn't ed (we've always had great support from lea etc) but immigration/ work issues where we were being prevented from a particular move because of dd2's disability. it was interesting. i was furious but on the edge of cracking up entirely, and accessed counselling through uni. it actually gave me the space i needed to let my guard down- so for about 8 weeks i had a scheduled slot to bawl. very therapeutic. and then i could hold it together for the rest of the time.

and as it happens, we did win eventually.

[Lougle]

So sorry for you all that you have suffered, and are still suffering, for your children to access education

I haven't had counselling officially, but I seem to go in cycles of 'ok' then 'this sucks'.

[Goblinchild]

No, because I worried that as a teacher I might find having it on my record could cause difficulties in the future for me. I know it's supposed to be confidential, but I come across parents in the most unlikely situations and it just wasn't worth the risk.
So I channelled the stress in other directions, not always successfully.